


Forget Me Not (And Remember Me Soon)

by sleepy_orange



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2742407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepy_orange/pseuds/sleepy_orange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sort of 50 First Dates meets Reincarnation fic. What if an accident prevents Merlin from remembering Arthur?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by archaeologist_d . Thanks for looking over my many many tense errors and putting up with my unnatural obsession with just. XD Also, partly inspired by the reel_merlin entry for 50 First Dates, which I loved and then thought that I wanted more of, and hey! What if reincarnation messes things up even more?

Merlin doesn’t always know who Arthur is. 

***

Sometimes he’s just the cute blonde guy that comes in the morning, orders waffles with coffee and then proceeds to create a waffle fort. He’ll sit there for hours, brow wrinkled in a little frown as he concentrates on making his waffle fort the best fort there is, planting little flags at the top of the turrets and pouring the syrup around his plate like the moat surrounding a castle. He’ll peek out from behind his fringe to see if Merlin is watching, catch his eye for a second and then go back to his fort with a renewed vigour, the pink tip of his tongue slipping out. His eyes are blue, so blue and they spark a little something of recognition in Merlin even though he’s never seen him before.

Merlin knows that Will is glaring at the guy, boring holes of death behind his back, purposefully burning his waffles despite Gwen’s small hmph of disapproval. He watches Gwen refill the empty cup of coffee, and if she’s a little sloppy in pouring out the liquid till it scorches the bloke’s hand, then it’s just an accident, because Gwen is a sweetheart and would never be mean to anyone. When he finally comes in from the kitchen, the lunch crowd over, Gaius will stand in front of the guy, giving him the eyebrow, till he finally looks up with a sheepish look on his face. His eyes will flick towards Merlin, as if searching for something that Merlin isn’t sure he can give, and then with a soft sigh of defeat, he’ll hop off his stool and leave. 

When it is his turn to clean the booths, Merlin will reach his table, look down at his little waffle fort, now sagging with the weight of soggy waffles, and see the napkin he’s left behind, hidden under the plate. It will have a crude, cartoonish drawing of a castle, sometimes a knight, sometimes a dragon, a wizard with a ridiculous hat with bells on them, (and where had those memories come from because Merlin’s fairly sure he’s never seen the guy before today? He’s fairly sure he’ll remember if they’d met before.) and Merlin will feel like he’s missing something important.

***

And sometimes Arthur will come in, shaking his head like a great big golden retriever, spraying rain-soaked air around him as he shakes out his umbrella, softly cursing the weather under his breath. He’ll look up and around the diner, noting the empty booths, the soft music playing from the speakers above and the chatter of voices coming from the kitchen. He’ll sit himself at the counter, look through the window into the kitchen itself, and watch Will tell some story or other, his hands animatedly flailing through the air as if the bigger his gestures, the more likely it is for his story to be believed. He’ll hear more than see Gwen laugh, a little tinkle that fills the air with so much joy, and in his mind’s eye, he can see her throw her head back, brown curls dipping to the small of her back. 

He’ll fidget in his seat, wet jeans not being the most comfortable item of clothing ever, and he’ll see something out of the corner of his eye. A third figure, standing a little away from Gwen and Will as he half-heartedly wipes some dishes in an attempt to make it seem like he is doing work and not skiving off. He’ll see the blinding grin flash at Will, a grin so wide that it stretches from ear to ear and reduces his eyes to mere crinkles, only the smallest sliver of blue visible –

and Arthur’s breath will catch in his throat. 

His vision swims, and for a moment, he thinks that he is back in Camelot, the heavy weight of a circlet on his head, the murmur of a crowd around him, and Merlin … Merlin hiding in a corner with Gwen at his side, his red kerchief hiding the bites on his neck from their time that afternoon, his cheeks already a light pink from the wine he’d snuck from Arthur’s goblet. As if sensing Arthur’s eyes on him, Merlin turns mid-sentence, grinning that idiotic, slightly manic-looking and utterly adorable grin at him, and Arthur drops his fork in surprise. Even from where he is, Arthur can hear Merlin laugh at him, can see the fond little shake of his head as he mumbles something about prattish princes drinking more than they should and losing all sense of balance. Scowling, Arthur reaches for his goblet; he would show Merlin that he, unlike some idiotic manservants, he could handle his wine, his fingers closing around the stem of his goblet ----

And jolts back to the cold, empty diner when his fingers close themselves into a fist rather than the cool metal of his feast goblet. 

The ache is heavy in Arthur’s heart, and he’s not too sure that he can tell the different between then and now, not too sure that he would be able to say that his name was Arthur Penn without his tongue wrapping around the dragon at the end of it, and not too sure that he can pretend he doesn’t know Merlin today, not when his mind is still trying to convince him that this is Camelot and his heart tells him that Merlin is right there and all he needs to do is reach out, call his name ---

When Merlin turns around, mid-sentence from his snipe at Will’s latest dating disaster, all he sees is the slightest flash of red and the door softly closing shut. 

***

Then there are the times when it is Merlin who will stumble in through the door, his limbs having not yet settled into the graceful elegance that Arthur knows he will have later in life, simultaneously trying to wriggle out of his coat while dragging out his work shirt from his bag and shouting his apologies to Gwen and Will for being late; it isn't his fault that his alarm clock is too soft to withstand a throw to the wall to shut it up. Gwen will smile indulgently at him like he is a pet kitten that she just wants to cuddle close and hide from the world, while Will would yell at him to get going quickly before Gaius realises how late he is, and Merlin will blow past Arthur like a human hurricane, dropping excuses mes with hellos and I’m sorrys. 

He’ll be extra effusive, smiling wider, laughing harder, working faster, trying to get back into Gwen and Will’s good graces, even though they’ve already forgiven him and he knows it. He’ll talk to the regulars, helping them finish the word cross puzzle, and slowly as the breakfast crowd thins, he’ll find himself lingering more by the counter, each time finding himself closer to the cute guy, Arthur. He’s not the most observant of guys, and usually it’s Gwen who has to tell him when someone is flirting with him, but he can feel Arthur’s eyes on him, following him around the diner as he works. He’d thought it was a joke at first, the guy is gorgeous, and while Merlin had outgrown his awkward teenaged years and had come to accept that he is not totally disgusting to look at, he’s nowhere near the same orbit as that guy, much less his league. He’d gone to Gwen after the first hour, trying to ask her with his face, tilting his head jerkily and twitching his eye maniacally, if she thought the guy liked him, but she’d only looked at him in confusion and then Will had butted in, saying that he looked like he had a tick, and was he sure he wasn’t seizing up? In his fierce rebuttal to Will, he hadn’t notice Gwen’s small unhappy frown as she looked at Arthur, and the sad smile she gave to him right before she ducked out of the kitchen.

By the time his shift ends, Merlin is pretty sure that the guy likes him, what with the way he’d sat through the breakfast, lunch and dinner crowd just playing with his food, occasionally reading the paper, but always, always keeping his eye on him. He can feel the tips of his ears turning red with the constant attention, and half the time he’s still convinced that it’s because he’s got something on his face, but though it is a little bit creepy and stalkery, he’s not yet willing to go over and demand the guy stop staring at him, and there’s a little voice just telling him to look. 

Look at the way his hair positively glows in the afternoon, golden strands picking up the sun’s rays and Merlin’s fingers itch with wanting to run them through the strands, wants to know if they’ll feel warm like the sun on his fingers, wants to know if they smell like warm grass and happiness on a sunny day. See the way he hunches in his seat, as if there’s a heavy weight on his shoulders, a responsibility that he can’t seem to shake, a burden that is just his to carry, and is he sure that Merlin can’t help him with it? They say that it helps to talk. Watch the way his eyes rove the diner every once in a while as if assessing the place, looking out for potential threats, and when they’re happy that there is none near him, they’ll settle back on Merlin, making him want to grin and say thank you for keeping me safe, even though he knows that is ridiculous and really, how dangerous can a small diner be?

Merlin can’t seem to get enough of this guy, wants to feast his eyes on his face, feels like a starving man who’s been deprived of sight for years and now he just wants more. He catalogues the stranger: heavy shadows under his eyes, too-sharp teeth glinting when he speaks, full lips curving over the top of his cup as he drinks, and they feel beloved. He wants to know why they feel beloved, why it feels like his eyes have tracked this same path before, why it sets off a deep wanting in his gut. 

But he’s not an impatient guy, and for now, Merlin will just settle for approaching Arthur at the end of his shift, carefully folding his uniform so that his fingers won’t twitch and show how nervous he is, and ask if he would like to go for a cup of coffee. And he knows what will happen next, has seen it a thousand times before. He knows that they’ll go for that coffee, that they will talk for hours and that with every joke he tells, every confidence shared, every story told, that he’ll fall in love just that little bit deeper. They’ll end up at Merlin’s place, legs tangled in the sheets, breaths loud in an otherwise silent apartment, and fingers locked tightly together as hips shifted and the world rights itself again.

And then Merlin will wake up the next morning, alone in his bed and wonder why he was naked. He’ll snuggle back under the covers, catch a whiff of something in the air that ought to be familiar to him, but isn’t, and his eyes will fall on the clock , causing him to jump out saying that he’s late late late and Gaius is going to kill him.

 

***

 

All these times, it all starts with Arthur remembering who he is, who he’s been and who he’s missing. It was an ordinary day when the Once and Future King regains his memories, nothing special about it, no extraordinary event sparking the first fall of stones that will bring down the avalanche. He just wakes up one day, and remembers. Not just that first time when he was a prince and has a manservant that drove him mad in all the ways that counted, not just now when he was a thirty-something bachelor working endless hours in a cubicle knowing that there was something bigger for him out there if only he could find it, but all the times in between, too. A soldier, a nobleman, a hippie, a soldier again, but always always with Merlin by his side. He’d always been the one to find Arthur, always there to prod and push and push and prod till the stubbornness wore out and Arthur did something with his life. We’re here for a reason, he’d say, and even when there’s no war to fight in, no cause to fight for, they’ll always find something to make a difference in. 

Except this time, he’s not here. And Arthur has wasted thirty-years of his life working in a meaningless job, living a meaningless life, and all he wants is to find Merlin, to make it all right again. 

He does find him, though in the end, it’s more down to sheer dumb luck, or destiny, Merlin would say, rather than the ads in the papers Arthur has bought or the people he’s asked. It’s been six months, and with every day that passes by with no sign of Merlin, Arthur feels more and more dejected, more lost, more willing to give up, though he knows he won’t ever because Merlin has spent countless lifetimes doing this and he’d always found him in the end. 

There’s a diner, and god, is Arthur hungry, craving for some waffles at 4pm in the afternoon, and when he walks in, Merlin is right there, serving some dishes, laughing with the customers about something or other, hair the same mess as it ever was, ears still utterly ridiculous, but right there, and for a moment, Arthur wants to slap the upside of his head and say you idiot, I’ve been looking for you for ages. 

But it’s not a happy ending, not a and they live happily ever after in sight, because when he sits there, grinning so widely that his jaw is slightly aching, his heart full bursting with joy and smug satisfaction, Merlin comes up to him, shouts an order to Will (Will is here too!) over his shoulder and looks at him with a cheerful grin asking what can I do for you? There’s no hint of recognition in his voice, and though his eyes look at Arthur with appreciation, there’s nothing there – no twinkle of laughter saying I knew you’d find me, no twinge of annoyance at what took you so long?, not even the glaze of fondness at hello, Arthur.

He’s confused, of course he’s confused, Merlin had never had this much trouble with him. As far as Arthur can remember, Merlin had always just appeared and he’d remember everything, and why wouldn’t it work with Merlin, too? Why won’t he remember? But maybe Merlin’s just being Merlin, making things difficult when they really should be easy, and so he says nothing that first day, just orders his waffles and eats silently. He sees Guinevere, and Gaius too, and though it’s a joy to see them all back, there’s never been so many of them back in the same place before. 

He comes back the next day. And the next. And the day after that too. But every time he comes in, Merlin will just look at him with that same empty smile and clueless eyes. And while maybe Merlin needs time to remember who Arthur is, remember who he is, who they are, surely by now he’d recognise Arthur as a regular customer. But he doesn’t, and so they repeat the same dance over and over again, till one day, just as Arthur is about to enter the diner, he’s cornered by Gaius before he can open the door. 

… newspaper clippings …

… amnesia …

… accident …

… same day …

… can’t retain new information …

… best if you stay away …

… good for Merlin …

It’s all a bit confusing for Arthur still, all the medical terms and gruesome pictures of the accident, but what it comes down to is this: Merlin doesn’t remember him, can’t remember him, won’t remember him. And for a while, all Arthur can do is rage at the stupid world, at stupid destiny and stupid fucking dragons for telling him about his other side of the coin and what’s the use of all that when his stupid fucking coin can’t fucking remember?! There is a lot of cursing at first, a lot of throwing things against the wall in his flat, a lot of complaints from his neighbours.

He tries to follow Gaius’ advice, tries to get on with his life, reconciling the fact that he’ll never have Merlin, not in this life at least, and he’ll just have to live with it, he’s survived thirty years without that idiot and he can do so again. But it’s not – the same. And he can’t – without Merlin. He hadn’t known about Merlin then, hadn’t known what exactly it was he was missing, and now that he’d found it, Arthur can’t seem to let go. So he comes back one day, loitering outside for a while, trying to avoid being seen by Gaius while catching glimpses of Merlin, and there’s a frown on his face; a small frown of confusion every time he looks at the booth where Arthur used to sit, as if expecting someone to be there, though he’s not sure who. He carries the frown with him the whole day, till by the end of his shift, he’s massaging his temples and Gwen has told him repeatedly to go home, or at least lie down. Arthur can see how tired he looks, the unhappy tilt of his mouth, the frown creating new lines on his forehead. 

And maybe Arthur knows then why there is so many of them back right now. Why Merlin was given Will and Gwen and Gaius, and Arthur doesn’t have anyone, not even him. And maybe even though Merlin can’t remember anything new, and doesn’t know that he can’t remember Arthur, he can still feel it, can still feel that there’s something just out of his reach, but no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t grasp the end of that string of memory. And maybe all this time, Arthur has been a selfish bastard thinking only of himself, when Merlin is right there, when at least he gets to know that Merlin is here with him, when the same can’t be said for him. 

So Arthur braves Will’s glares and Gwen’s unnaturally sloppy handling of his coffee and Gaius’s disapproving eyebrow, and decides he’ll just be persistent and keep coming till one day, Merlin will remember him. 

***

And then there’s this once, just this one time, on a rare wonderful sunny day when it seems like a crime to stay indoors, Merlin will look up as the door chimes, signaling the arrival of another customer, and smile at him. He’ll take Arthur’s hand, slipping his fingers in between Arthur’s like they’d always been there, like it has only been hours since they’d last held hands, and not days (years, centuries), shout to Gaius that he is taking the day off, and leads him out into the sun.


	2. Once More (This Road We Tread)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Merlin and Arthur cope the next time round with Merlin's amnesia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed again by the wonderful archaeologist_d. Blame it all on randomisedhabit who asked me whether the amnesia will affect their future lives too, or if that will be reset?

It’s almost as if that first time sets off something in Arthur because once again, it’s him who remembers first. 

He jolts awake after having fallen asleep on the sofa, a warm soft body curled under him, and Disney’s The Sword in the Stone playing on the telly. For a moment, he’s lost in the crashing waves of memories trying to embed themselves into his brain, twelve lifetimes of having lived and loved trying to make themselves known and he feels like he’s drowning.

It’s too much, too much - images of places that he doesn’t even know the names of, much less been to, suddenly coming to life in his mind, the memory of them so fresh that he can almost feel the caress of the wind on his skin, smell the faint scent of horses and hear the bustle of the servants as they go about their duties. 

And people, so many people that his mind tumbles over itself trying to catch them all, names and faces suddenly becoming familiar to him. He sees past lovers and friends, enemies that he has made again and again, a father that he never really knew (and the one lifetime that he did - he plucks out that strand of memory and places it carefully away), and ---

\--- there. 

Merlin.

And isn’t it just like Merlin that the image that Arthur has of him, is of that stupid grin of his: hanging blearily over his head as he wakes up from being knocked out yet again, flashed across a crowded room of people dancing as he tries to not fall asleep listening to some woman talking to him, slowly unfurling as a customer tells him a well-worn joke. 

There’s Merlin stumbling ungracefully against stone walls and gripping his arm tightly, wine taking away any semblance of balance that he might have, stupidly chanting I’m drunk. Arthur, I’m drunk. Drunk, Arthur. Are you drunk, Arthur? while grinning and laughing at the world. And there’s him again, a pleased grin on his face as he bests Arthur at fencing, and isn’t that an experience that Arthur never ever wants to repeat even though it was hardly a fair fight what with Merlin having been brought up at court (Rome? Were they in Rome?) and Arthur not having picked up a sword before. But Merlin had laughed and Arthur had pouted, complaining that he was just rusty, okay. 

Arthur flushes then, because the next image his brain has so helpfully provided him with is of Merlin, pale form bending upwards to curl around him, a slow lazy grin on his face as Arthur sucks open-mouthed kisses down his neck, hands wandering down his body, possessive and proprietary, and it doesn’t matter which lifetime it is, which century, which year, because this is an image that runs through all of them, etched indelibly into his memory, and it is not something that Arthur should be thinking about at all, not when he’s still lying on the sofa next to Samantha (girlfriend, his brain provides).

After the initial rush of memory, comes the decision to be made of what exactly he was going to do. He wants to go find Merlin, every instinct in him is telling him to run out right now and find him, find Merlin. 

FindMerlinfindMerlinfindMerlin. 

But Arthur remembers the last time, remembers days of sitting at a lonely booth eating soggy waffles and remembers long nights spent in front of his laptop searching for cures for amnesia, like it’s a battle he can win if only he’s prepared enough, because as his weapons master told him once, an ill-prepared knight is a dead knight. 

He remembers endless days of just watching from afar, a bone-deep ache settling in him at not being able to touch, smell, taste and rare nights when he gets to have his fill of Merlin, and even though it’s not quite the same, not when Merlin still can’t remember him, it will have to be enough for now. He remembers missed chances, an entire lifetime giving way to dreary days and blank nights, something that should have been beautiful and wonderful dying before it even had the chance to bloom. 

And he doesn’t think that he can do it again. 

One lifetime was hard enough, he thinks, and with the weary sigh of someone who has seen too much, loved too hard and fell too far, of someone who thinks that’s it and I can’t do this anymore, he settles himself back on the sofa and tries to go back to sleep.

***

But while Arthur may have decided to stop playing the game Destiny has set out for him, there are two players to every game, two actors to every scene, and that is the very night that Merlin dreams. 

They’re in Merlin’s apartment (it’s always his apartment), stretched out on the bed, bodies facing each other, fingers entangled together and breaths intermingling as they try to stay awake. It’s late, night having fallen hours ago and dawn fast approaching, and while they’re both exhausted down to the bone, the day having taken its toll on them, they’re not ready to relinquish their hold on this day. 

"You can’t keep doing this, Arthur."

"Doing what? Eating waffles?"

Merlin glares at him then, annoyed at Arthur for being so purposely obtuse, for dancing around the issue when he knows exactly what he is talking about. But he doesn’t, because Arthur, his dear Arthur, is scared, scared and sad, and Merlin’s the one who has put those lines on his face, who has caused those blue eyes to look so haunted and lost, and he isn’t sure he’s doing the right thing here, isn’t sure if he even wants to be doing this, but he has to try. 

"Coming to the diner, seeing me, eating those damn waffles every day. They’re going to give you diabetes, one day."

"But waffles are delicious, Merlin! They are yummy and delicious, and what else am I going to order at that diner of yours if I’m not allowed waffles?"

Arthur’s voice shakes, shakes as he tries determinedly to keep the conversation light and fun, and it takes all of Merlin’s strength to keep his arms where they are, because they ache to be wrapped around Arthur, to shield him from the burdens he’s carrying and protect him from the hurt that he’s feeling. He wants to smooth the panic from Arthur’s face, wants to soothe away the fear, wants to cup his face and kiss his lips and promise that he’s never going anywhere. 

But he doesn’t want to lie. 

"I want you to stop coming, okay? Don’t come to the diner anymore."

"And where else am I supposed to go, Merlin? Where else am I supposed to go for my breakfast?"

Merlin hears the desperation in Arthur’s voice, the unspoken question of where else is he supposed to be if not by Merlin’s side? 

He’s having a good day today, a day when the magic in him triumphs science and he can remember that he is Merlin, powerful warlock and trusted advisor, or just plain Merlin the idiot, then, Arthur teases, and not Merlin, a man who has lost nearly a decade of his life to a stupid accident and can’t even remember the love of his lives. 

He hates these days, hates them from giving him glimpses into the life he could have had with Arthur and Will and Gwen and Gaius by his side, hates them for the false optimism that they give Arthur, and hates them for not lasting longer. 

He only ever has a few hours, a few hours to live as much as he can, asking Gaius about everything that has happened, ignoring the gentle touches to his arm as he’s told how far behind the world has left him as if he’s going to run screaming in shock at how things have changed: laughing with Gwen and Will as he catches up with their lives, forcing himself to not see the tears in Gwen’s eyes as she tells him she’s married, to not miss the moments that he has lived but doesn’t remember, and kissing Arthur, kissing him till their lips are red and swollen, and they’re both feeling so raw, as if they’ve been scrubbed down to the bone and all that’s left is their desperate need to feel each other again. 

"Live, for me, Arthur. Live your life, get married, have kids, just live." 

"Merlin, no."

Arthur is crying now, not even trying to hide his tears anymore, and Merlin hates himself for making this man, the greatest king the world has ever seen, and the best man that he has ever known, cry. But he knows that he’ll hate himself more for letting Arthur live this charade of a life, for knowing about it and not try to convince Arthur to be more, to let go of him and live in the now. Because all Merlin can do, is live in the then. All he remembers are instances from years ago, his mind stuck on loop over and over again, and he doesn’t want Arthur to be stuck with him. Arthur is bright and beautiful and wonderful, and he belongs to the future. 

"We’ll always have today. And I’ll remember you. I’ll wake up one day and remember you, and I’ll be sad for a while, cos it’s always sad without you, Arthur, but we’ll always have today, yeah?"

His voice is getting slurred, sleep finally catching up with him, and his eyes are getting heavy. Merlin knows that he’ll wake up tomorrow with no memory of today, no recollection of this conversation he’s had with Arthur, and while he’ll never be totally happy, he’s at least a little at peace, because he’s tried. He’s done the right thing, the expected thing, he’s told Arthur to move on with his life and forget him. 

And if he hears the soft whispered No right before he falls asleep, if he feels his fingers clutched a little tighter, if he knows that Arthur will still be at the diner tomorrow morning, ready to order his waffles and coffee, then that’s because Arthur is an arrogant prat who never listens to anyone, and not because Merlin didn’t try. 

***

Arthur lasts all of two months, because of course just as he remembers, just as he resigns himself to not looking for Merlin, he sees him everywhere. 

At first, it’s just the glimpse of a dark mop of head darting round the corner as he leaves his lecture, discussing the latest assignment with Lance - and oh, it was good to have him back. 

It’s almost too fast for him, and for a while Arthur is sure that it was just his imagination, just something left over from his memories coming back to him. But then it happens again, and this time Arthur sees the lean body that accompanies the hair, and knows, just knows, that it is Merlin, that of all the places for him to be, of course, he’s in the same uni as Arthur, and of course, they’ve run into each other before and just not known. 

It’s another few days before he sees Merlin’s face, runs smack into him in the cafe because he was too absorbed in texting to Samantha (We need to talk. Urgent. Call me.) to watch where he was going, and it feels like a physical blow to his gut when he looks right up into familiar bright blue eyes. They stand there, mutely staring at each other, oblivious to the disgruntled voices around them as people shuffled around them. 

Arthur panics, panics because it’s Merlin. Merlin’s right here. Here, and he doesn’t think he’s ready for this, doesn’t think he can take having Merlin look at him like a stranger again. His head drops, and he mumbles out an apology, using the crowd of people around him as an excuse to step away, and misses the spark of recognition in Merlin’s eyes. 

He breaks up with Samantha that night. 

***

It takes a while for things to work out and Merlin can hear his mother scold him to be patient, sweetheart. 

But he doesn’t want to wait, because ever since that night he dreamt, ever since he remembered again, all he can think about is Arthur. He’s missed Arthur before, sure, has spent years before looking for him, but this feels different. There’s a hunger in him, a deep hunger, and he feels like he has not had Arthur for so very long, long enough that he can’t actually remember when was the last time he held him. 

And Arthur is being particularly difficult this time around. It would almost be ridiculous how well he manages to evade Merlin, if not for the vise grip around his heart tightening just that little bit more every time Arthur sees him and runs away. 

What Arthur’s problem is, he does not know, because Merlin is pretty sure that Arthur remembers too, remembers him and them, but Merlin is not going to let him get away with it, so he follows Arthur around. He befriends Lance, gets to know Arthur’s class schedule, and for want of a better term, stalks him. 

Arthur has always been a little stubborn, and it takes a special skill set to get through to him, and hey, isn’t it just lucky that Merlin possess that skill set? 

Like he said, it took a while, but Merlin is very good at being persistent, and slowly, things do work out. Arthur finally acknowledges him, his smile wobbly and eyes uncertain as he shakes Merlin’s hand. It took a few more days of Merlin slowly, almost shyly (and good god, when was the last time they had been shy with each other?) flirting with him before Arthur agreed to go out for a coffee with him, and by the time they go out for a proper date and Merlin finds himself back at Arthur’s apartment, he’s slammed Arthur against the door, hissing at him to get with the program, already.

And it’s great. It really is; the hunger in him is finally ebbing, and he’s not so desperate for Arthur anymore. They’re back to their usual bickering ways, and it almost feels like how it’s supposed to be.

Almost. 

Because Merlin can see the looks that Arthur sends him when he thinks he isn’t looking, can see the relief in his eyes every morning when Merlin rolls over, mumbling what, Arthur? It’s too early, go back to sleep. 

He sees the way Arthur tenses every time they’re crossing the road, how he grips Merlin’s wrist a little too tightly, like he’s a child that has to be kept close so that he doesn’t wander off, and how he never ever lets Merlin drive. The one time Merlin had driven over to Arthur’s place, excited and a little horny because he’s always wanted to try car sex, Arthur had paled, the blood draining from his face, and without saying a word, had gone back into his flat and locked himself in the bathroom. He’d heard Arthur retching from behind the closed door, and when he’d come out, all he’d asked was could we stay in, tonight? Just you and me. Let’s stay in, his voice trembling and a little desperate. 

And he knows that it has something to do with him, something with their previous life, maybe? Because all Merlin can remember of it is the dream he had that first night, everything else a total blank, and every time he asks Arthur what happened to them, their past selves, all he’d get was a they were happy. It’s a lie, Merlin knows it’s a lie, remembers how so sad he was in the dream, a bone-tired resigned sort of unhappiness that seeps in and never quite lets go, and he remembers how tired Arthur had looked, weary and age-worn. So he knows that they weren’t happy, that they were possibly never happy and it scares him that that unhappiness is seeping into their lives now. 

But he’s not going to let something that he can’t even remember destroy them now, not when he’s finally happy, and Arthur is finally starting to look like a normal twenty-one year old and not someone with too many secrets, and Merlin can be stubborn too, did you not know? 

So every time he asks Arthur what’s wrong, and every time Arthur tries to wave him off, tries to distract him with sex, or tries to feed him a cleaned-up version of the truth, because even after a lifetime, the wound is still too fresh, scab too raw, and Arthur is just not ready to remember yet, Merlin will simply wait a while and then come back again at him, because there is something different about this Arthur, he's come back a little bit wrong, and Merlin just wants his Arthur back. 

This Arthur is too polite, too nice, too clean and careful, and Merlin is beyond frustrated with him, wants to shake him till he spits it out, bang his head till the truth falls out his ear, and cut a little line on his wrist to show him that yes, I may bleed, but I'm still alive, Arthur!

And Merlin will be patient. He will be patient, because his mother had also told him that good things comes to those who wait, love, and he does, he does love this wounded, scared Arthur, and he’ll love him till he gets his arrogant prince again.

***

Then one day, when they’re watching The Notebook because it’s been a lovely rainy day that is just perfect for cuddling on the sofa and watching soppy romantic movies, Merlin will turn to Arthur and see him crying, silent tracks of tears running down his cheeks till they turn into deep wrenching sobs, his whole body shaking with force of them. 

And Merlin will wrap his arms around him, kiss his forehead softly, almost reverently because his Arthur hurts, deep in his heart and his gut, his Arthur hurts, and then, maybe then, in the silent hush of their flat and safe within Merlin’s strong embrace, Arthur will tell him.


End file.
